Kookaburra Whelk

Gyrineum pulchellum

The Kookaburra Whelk is so named because of its striking profile resemblance to a perched kookaburra. In reality it is actually a species of triton (Family Ranellidae). Growing to only 30mm in shell length, it lives on sandy-mud bottoms and is commonly dredged, especially in places like Gladstone Harbour on the central Queensland coast. Other, larger species of the genus Gyrineum also occur in Queensland waters and elsewhere in the Indo-West Pacific.

The species is distributed from Indonesia and Australia.

Shell of Kookaburra Whelk (Gyrineum pulchellum)

Kookaburra Whelk (Gyrineum pulchellum) shown ‘perched’ on a stick-‘tree’ to reveal how it received its common name

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